Nineteen years later. If that tragic day never occurred this year Aircrewman Owens, dead at nineteen before he could legally drink in his own country, would have lived twice as long as he did.

Rick Tafoya, Brian Cerino. In the next two years you two would have been twice as old as when you died.

I know Rick and I would be hanging out today – two California boys getting gray hair and talking about the stuff we used to do, maybe watching Eric Sass’ boys playing Little League. We knew each other from Pensacola, maybe also from barracks time in San Diego during the core training for SERE.

Duncan, Cerino’s roommate in Tennessee and my good friend here during training twenty years ago never seemed to be the same afterwards.

Maybe none of us were ever the same. Simple mistakes kill good people and they give out awards for those of us who get OCD about preventing the mistakes that kill and call it a safety program.

Miss you guys. You’re gone but never forgotten.

The Final Patrol by David (Devo) Devarney

Schedule checked
Another all-nighter, dawn patrol
Last beer drunk, hit the rack
Waken, first day of spring
Crew rest, waken again
Grab bag, boots tied
Last pat on the head
Last embrace
Lips touch
Love you, see ‘ya in the morning
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Main gate, ID card flashed
Attend brief, get tapes
Check books, read MAFs
APU started, preflight begins
Buoys loaded, plane fueled
Last geedunk run
Last smoke
Planeside brief, props turning
Chocks pulled
Thumbs up
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Taxi
SET 5, set
Approach end
SET POWER
Brakes released
ON THE ROLL
7000……….…6000….5000…4000
REFUSAL, ROTATE, airborne
GEAR UP
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Left turn, intersect
Woodside VOR
SET 4, set
SET 3, kilo alfa
SET 2, break out the cards
Dinners cooking
DESCENT CHECKLIST
Check in, WE GOT IT
THANKS GUYS, SAFE FLIGHT
On stay
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Spit buoys, BUOYS SWEET
Patience, gain contact
Track, BELOW 1000
LPAs ON, SET 1
SIM ATTACK
DOORS OPEN
STANDBY MAD
MAD…MAD…MAD
WEAPON AWAY, SUS AWAY
Continue tracking
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Relief checks in
TACAN lock, got visual
Swapping altitude
Closing…closing
C O L L I S I O N, F I R E B A L L
E X P L O S I O N
W A T E R I M P A C T
Cold…..dark
Silent
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Wreckage floats, slicks shimmer
No survivors
TAFOYA – CAVUOTO – SMITH
DYER – HEIKKINEN – MCNERNEY
HOGUE – DABBS – CERINO
OWENS – SPOSATO – TISDALE
NEMECEK – CARMODY – HAMILTON
METCALF – REDMOND – WILLIAMSON
CHAIKIN – COX – SHIELDS
BECKNER-¨ GERMEAU – FARQUAHAR
DAVIS – HALL – RICE
Husbands and daddies…..lost
Sons and loved ones….….lost
Friends and shipmates…..lost
Gone…………..…….Forever
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Chaplains visit
Friends console…hug…support
Services, present colors
Reddened eyes
Tears spilt
Sobs choked
Hands held
Backs rubbed
Eulogies and epitaphs
Folded flags
Bowed heads
Supreme sacrifice
Grateful nation
TAPS, guns and bells echo
Flags wave, tears stream
º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º º
Searching for answers
Wondering, wondering
Empty beds
Days turn to weeks
Weeks turn to months
Months turn to years
Years pass on
The first decade has arrived
Tears still wet
Memories not faded
Friendships not forgotten
Love never lost
Still on the flight schedule
Still flying, still on-station
Still wearing their Wings of Gold

—–

My Personal Heroes Pt 1

My Personal Heroes Pt 2

So Others May Live | Memorial Day 2008

Andy Brewer passed away three years ago. I just wanted to put this up here in case anyone wanted to share sea stories about Andy so I can put them up on the main site. Leave a reply with your memories.

I got enough time recently to put an email I received up as a memorial page on the site.Two of Andy’s shipmates in that picture, Dewey Thompson and Keith Poole, were instructors of mine as I went through VS-41. [note: site url is unavailable, hence the repost here]

As a personal note, I met Andy at the 2004 decom ceremony. He may have passed on as a civilian, but he will always be an AW, and his legacy lives on.

Ironically, I first met Andy just a week prior to my son being born in 2004 and they share the same name – Andrew Charles.

Quoted from Knoxville News Sentinel:

Charles A. (Andy) Brewer

BREWER, CHARLES A. (ANDY) – age 43, of Holtsville, California, passed away Sunday, March 25, 2007. He served in the United States Navy 10 years and most recently with Homeland Security as a U.S. Customs Officer.

Preceded in death by his father, Bill Brewer. Survived by wife, Linda; daughters, Elise and Carley Brewer, Courtney and husband, Leo Jimenez; son, Devin Brewer, all of California; mother and stepfather, Bobbie and Bill Laugherty of Knoxville, Tennessee; brother, Greg Brewer and wife, Vicki of Colts Neck, New Jersey; brother, Jeff Brewer and wife, Dixie of Wheatland, Wyoming.

Family and friends will meet at Woodlawn Cemetery on Monday for 11:00 AM graveside services, Dr. William Sheil, Pastor of First Baptist Church presiding. Arrangements by Berry Funeral Home, Chapman Highway

www.berryfuneralhome.com

We have a memorial letter from an attending AW that was published on redgriffins.org.

1. Disturbing new statistics show that one in three women is unemployed.
2. Disturbing new statistics show that one in three black men is unemployed.
3. Disturbing new statistics show that one in three Hispanics is unemployed.

Is there any sincere doubt that any of these headlines would not result in a million man march, an amendment to the Constitution, or result in California media outlets leading their broadcasts and newspaper front pages with the story?

None of these are true.

• The disturbing new statistic shows that one in three Veterans is unemployed.

I’m shocked and sickened that across the board in America, in all industries, we are not hiring people who not only have led people, they’ve led people in the most life and death circumstances possible.

From Army Times.com this week:

Disturbing new statistics from the Labor Department show that one in three veterans under age 24 is unemployed — and that the unemployment rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has jumped to 14.7 percent, half again as high as the national employment rate of 9.7 percent.

The March unemployment rate of 30.2 percent for veterans aged 18 to 24 is a big jump from February’s figure of 21.7 percent, although it may be partly the result of a small sample used by the Labor Department in determining unemployment, said Justin Brown, a labor expert for Veterans of Foreign Wars.

No wonder the ‘Greatest Generation’ never talked about their portion of WWII. They’d never get hired.

As far as training, documentation and the ability for project management – hire a vet and you won’t be disappointed. Imagine what your skills would be like if you had spent four to six years constantly rewriting manuals and accomplishing the impossible.

And now for something personal…

My personal history? My mom and dad were both at Berkeley in the sixties. My dad was arrested at Sproul Hall while my mom, not having met him yet, recalls thinking that she would work for change from the inside rather than protest and become an activist.

Dad’s arrest? Actually, according to two published sources, he was the only one out of nearly 800 arrested to first win the right for his own independent trial by jury and second, be acquitted by a hung jury. After defending himself.

Either way, I know how to throw one hell of a movement. It’s in my blood. I’m concerned at this trend and will be watching it very closely.

I hold it, that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787

From CNN we have this commentary:

"It’s unforgivable that new veterans are bearing the brunt of the economic downturn," IAVA Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff said in a statement. "This is no way to welcome a new generation of heroes home. America can and must do better."

Tom Tarantino, IAVA’s legislative associate, said it’s more important than ever that the military and Congress find a way to make military service and experience "quantifiable" for people who hire in the civilian world. For all the skills, including in leadership, that servicemembers learn while in uniform, many companies just do not see what these bring to their own workplace, according to Tarantino.

I’m not shocked by this. With only 0.5% serving active duty and 8% who have ever served, I wonder what impact most people feel within society from Vets.

Update: PTSD fears may be a factor. Menninger Clinic, Baylor College of Medicine reports in a January 2010 study that:

The point prevalence of combat-related PTSD in US military veterans since the Vietnam War ranged from approximately 2% to 17%. Studies of recent conflicts suggest that combat-related PTSD afflicts between 4% and 17% of US Iraq War veterans, but only 3-6% of returning UK Iraq War veterans.

So out of the 0.5% of the US population who currently serves, between 4% and 17% may have PTSD based on their exposure to traumatic events.

Compare that to this sample: Lifetime exposure to any type of traumatic event was 69%, whereas exposure to crimes that included assault or homicide of close relative of friend occurred among 36%.

The last sample happens to be a study done in 1993 quoted as a resource in over a thousand papers. The sample was intended to be representative cross-section of all women in the United States not involved in combat.

I’m no psychologist. But I’m also a believer in there being some sense of fairness when statistics are used. Maybe some professionals can dissect the research and explain to me where the PTSD buck stops – or is ‘dangerous PTSD’ reserved for only Veterans?

Probably helped that we were outside and didn’t have stuff falling down on them. So it sort of didn’t kill our mood.

Some news: KPBS says…

The magnitude 7.2 quake was centered near Guadalupe Victoria in Baja California. The USGS reports it’s the largest earthquake to shake the region in 18 years.

There have been three large aftershocks so far, including one that registered a 5.5 magnitude, and other smaller temblors, USGS said.

We’ll see how things turn out tomorrow. The kicker is what the unseen damage has been – elevators, infrastructure, and so on.

Cluetrain Manifesto Taken to the Streets

Check out SeeClickFix, a collaborative Google Maps-based application which takes city reporting to the next level. I see this working its way into the threads of user support just like Twitter has recently, just replace ‘user’ with ‘citizen’. Consumer complaints given transparency to all levels – KISS rule in place.

Simple, easy, point click and type your quick response. In fact, they now have a widget that takes the map embedding part of the problem and makes it easier for Web 2.0 users:

SeeClickFix.com encourages the posting of SeeClickFix maps on blogs and websites.

Great collaboration tool. I’m curious as to what corporate uses this might bring. And here’s a sneak-peak at a new feature on seeclickfix: http://www.seeclickfix.com/feeds.

What types of applications could this work well to address, or what do you see that you would have to counter?

Unbelievable. Another famous relative… From Wikipedia:

Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, USA, while his father was stationed at an Army base in Oklahoma. He was named Johnny Allen Hendrix at birth by his mother, 17 year old Lucille Hendrix née Jeter.

Just thought I’d throw that one out there…

Totally CRAVING In-N-Out

And no, this isn’t some 420 sort of thing. I’m not that kind of guy. Kids are asleep. and there’s no chance for me to get out and get one because I’m a single dad on duty.

Blast.

Those of you not located in the roughly 500 mile radius of the In-N-Out restaurant chain centered around Southern California, just have no idea. Sonic comes close to being the same phenomenon in the Midwest, White Castle on the eastern seaboard.

Once again this is not Harold and Kumar driven. More like blogwriter driven.

If you come to Disneyland, Sea World, or a myriad of Hollywood mecca type locations, you must at least once try the burger.

Quality matters

All ingredients California grown. French fries (which I’ve mostly shunned for going on eight years) so fresh the potato was still whole less than ten minutes prior to your eating it. Coke which is NEVER on the wrong syrup mix. Never wrong, ever ever too much soda water or too much syrup. And the shakes…

It’s been around for sixty years. Hopefully so will I even after eating my favorite 4×4 combo once every six weeks.

I’ve been resisting the urge for days now

DAYS. About ten to be exact. I almost feel like an Al-Anon working towards a thirty day pin or something except that I’m not really fighting my weight. It’s just mind over matter.

It’s been about 18 years since I had my first one.

Recently on a stop through Central California I heard about Animal Style fries. You wouldn’t believe my shock, that after 18 years there was something new I didn’t know. Animal Style fries are practically all the super artery clogging toppings of the burger but on the fries.

I haven’t had or even heard of anything like that since trying Gravy Fries in a Brooklyn diner at 3am. In, like, 1993. Then again, Central Cali is our version of Texas and Missouri.

You know, where the belt sizes expand about ten inches larger than SoCal glitzy nip/tuck or NorCal organic vegan averages. Where they would of course totally order, four or five people in a row, the Animal style fries, with cheese, sauce, grilled onions all on top of the fries. Wow.

That plus a Double-double is a heap-load of bad stuff barreling through your system. I’m too old to press my luck with that; I might like it far too much.

In-N-Out Even Has Secret Codes

I’m not kidding. You can stack your patties as high as you want just by saying the number of patties and cheese. Get grilled onions by ordering “Animal Style”. Go bunless by ordering “Protein Style”.

Regarding secret codes, this site has it rolling, even in color pictures.

The friendly employees of In-N-Out Burger will take your special order without question, if you use the right terminology. The printed receipt will have your special request typed on it just as we said it.

All of us have our vices. I just have to fight my urge every two months or so to sit a half an hour in a drive-thru line in order to satisfy a compulsion that hits me just about as often as KFC hits this guy:

Curious about what the background characters mean in the Olympics? Pick up one of these kits and teach yourself Chinese in a weekend.

Lazy me, I was doing a LinkedIn search reconnecting to old acquaintances from old squadrons I’ve been in (Shamrocks) and ran across the profile for this product.

I’ve been meaning to find a quick way to pick up kanji style languages and this looks perfect. These small word magnets are really cool. This is also going to be my hot Christmas gift this year as well since the price is only $20.

Learn Chinese Faster with IdeoLingo Word Magnets. Better Than Flashcards!

IdeoLingo® – Better Than Flashcards

IdeoLingo® is a Southern California-based company that develops fun and innovative study aids for students learning languages whose words and concepts are represented by ideograms.

These languages include but are not limited to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

Localizing For Dummies: Use MadCap Lingo

Of course MadCap Software has put a focus out for their localization services and their program Lingo has accolades for Chinese localization through XML.

With a strong Asian customer base, GPRO makes its technology solutions—along with the supporting documentation—available in English, simplified Chinese, and traditional Chinese versions. Since April 2008, GPRO has used the MadCap Lingo integrated content authoring and translation memory system together with MadCap Flare for content authoring and multi-channel delivery.

Where it once took up to six months to deliver a documentation project, GPRO now uses MadCap Lingo and Flare to complete the project in just one month.

Clearly Technical Communicators don’t have to learn Chinese in order to do documentation, however it’s just SO COOL that I recommend it. My philosophy is to pick up any bits of language that you can. When you’re done, IdeoLingo would even look cool on your fridge.

A Little Sight Recognition Goes A Long Way

While in the Navy, flash cards weren’t portable enough for me and my retention could have been better. Even so, while running around Hong Kong during Christmas 1994, my friends were (easily) impressed with how I was the first to find the subway, never got lost, and always found good food and cool stuff. After I got out of the Navy, sitting at the computer and crunching through exercises just didn’t fit into my time schedule. 

And then there’s my cautionary overseas travel tale… Now everyone can see how I got to be such a fan of eLearning software – cuts down on the travel hell.

Stand-up Training Culture Shock | Avoiding Gaijin Syndrome

My interest in cultural situational awareness was revived in 2000 with a last minute Fourth of July business trip to Taiwan. Those guys at Novatel Wireless must have really trusted me a lot to send me off by myself. Then again, the trip meant missing 4th of July stateside. For the millennium bash.

My favorite holiday, Fourth of July, was now a casualty of the sales contract specifics. And my status as junior man in the Applications Engineering department.

I’d watched the inflight movie Mission to Mars about seventeen times prior. This was due to my two month whirlwind onsite client support and product training tour courtesy of Novatel Wireless. They showed it again on the flight down to Taipei.

I’d never been to Taiwan but had previously been to Japan and Hong Kong. This time however, I was on my own. On my own after being picked up at midnight by one of the engineers in a Hsinchu technology park that looked like any other suburb. In a hotel that made Motel 6 look like the Hilton. With three channels on the TV and no CNN.

At least the hotel was across from the office I would be going to in the morning. 

I didn’t understand a thing anywhere. Three years before that Bill Murray movie Lost in Translation described utter culture shock I was living it for three straight days. A few books, no internet in the hotel, nothing to read or watch on TV, and no magazines in English.

Adding jet lag to that meant total sensory deprivation. My Palm V didn’t have enough juice to make a decent eBook and of course the travel charger cord was not the right type.

Of course the great thing is that GEEK is spoken globally, and the engineers I met with were really cool – even if most of the communication was one way with one guy translating. Once we got into AT command sets for the wireless modems it was like binary code between computers; we understood each other perfectly in machine language.

Of course there were no fireworks on the Fourth of July. I couldn’t even find a beer near my little Motel 6. That’s fine because by 4pm I was exhausted and crashed big time until 4am.

Things perked up after I made my way to Taipei. After a three hour bumpy taxi ride through back roads and past rice paddies I checked into a plush Starwood / Sheraton and had an hourlong shower.

Walking the city streets was amazing, and I tried my best to get lost. Blending in could have been a bit easier for me, I looked only about six inches taller than average but my surfing tan gave away my Western heritage. A deep California tan made me stick out about as much as I would have in Denmark.  

The good news was that I had learned to memorize the airport airline signage on the way out so I knew where I needed to come back to… That saved me on my return because the ticket desks were switched out as contracting airlines came and went.

I had to watch Mission to Mars yet one more time as this airline showed it on the return leg. Best thing ever, the DVD player was broken and we got to watch Mission to Mars…

Over and over and over. Three times, yes, three times in one flight.

Only just this year did I watch Mission to Mars again. I’d blocked it from my memory not unlike a traumatic train wreck it seems. I didn’t even recall the ending. Some eight years later it was surprising and pleasant, just like the first time I saw it. 

Back To The Review…

One of the IdeoLingo founders relates how the concept came about…

I experimented with several software programs but none allowed for hands-on manipulation or rearranging words and characters. Magnets seemed to be the perfect solution. I found a company to produce the magnets and asked my Chinese teacher to help me develop the initial vocabulary list.

A year later, production on these magnets began. After a quick self-tutorial of Adobe Illustrator, six proofs later and one test print, the first IdeoLingo® Chinese Magnet Kit was produced in Spring 2006.”

Free Consulting for IdeoLingo: Try PC and Flash

My recommendation for IdeoLingo might be to develop an expansion pack based on Windows, to help aid navigation of localized PC screens. Giving the tiles Windows colors would also be great marketing.

Another technical usage of these pre-existing Adobe Illustrator files might be for a Flash-based tutorial for use on a mobile phone or PDA. Something quick to enhance the study, nothing expensive. Adobe Illustrator files output to Flash, and keeping the screen size small enough to view with clarity would be simple. Keeping the same color scheme makes it easier to see in bright light, and gives a downloadable format that opens another sales channel.

IdeoLingo Analysis: KISS Rule In Force

What I find interesting is that first, this is a complete home developed product. Second, it’s cheap, portable, easy to understand. Third, the primary color usage is brilliant.

Keeping it simple, simply works in this application. There’s enough data here to navigate around Hong Kong or Taipei and count your change accurately. Plenty for a gaijin like me (yes, I know that’s a Japanese term) to get himself around and simple enough to learn on the 14 hour flight to Taiwan or other destinations.

For the price they’re asking, IdeoLingo is on my Christmas list for my more adventurous friends!

For some reason this year has been nostalgic for me. Martin Luther King Day I wrote about my family. Memorial Day I write about my other family. I write about my Navy family, and in particular, those who didn’t make it home.

They are my family, my fallen brothers and a sister. I will tell my children about them and they will live on in name and story and in our hearts.

This is off topic and an indulgence. I would be however, as Shakespeare put it regarding St. Crispen’s Day and the Battle of Agincourt, holding my manhood cheap would I not honor those who I know who have fallen with at least a nod today, nearly eighteen years later.

    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remembered-
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition;
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

From So Others May Live… My personal heroes

I’ve lost a few friends while in the service. There have been times that I didn’t know if I would make it myself – whatever scrape or close call occurred I made it out.

I recall five years ago I was at the gas pump at Costco here in San Diego and saw a helo patch and aircrew wings on the flight suit of the guy next to me.

I introduced myself, rattled off four names and he brightened when he recognized one. I told him that guy used to be my roommate off-base.

He stuck out his hand, saying, Good to meet you, Brother.

We all ran the seawall. We ran the obstacle course and the cross country course. We sweat together. We bled together. We learned our inner limits and then we pushed them farther than we thought possible.

In doing so, we grew up together and as such, we were brothers.

The first two fleet S-3 Viking AWs I ever met are both dead by violent means.

Both died outside the combat zone by violent means. One as the casualty of a robbery in progress, the other years later from self-inflicted wounds, perhaps from scars we all share.

Mongo, I wish I would have known the problems you had. When people wonder why I cry at the end of the movie Jarhead, it’s because I’m remembering you.

From So Others May Live | Personal Heroes Pt. 2

Today, Memorial Day 2008, I’m sitting here alone writing. The kids are with their mom. My friends have long left for barbeques. The television is off and has been all day.

Today for the first time in eighteen years, it’s about memorializing my friends who will never have kids, who will not see another barbeque or a beer. It’s also about realizing that I lost more friends in peacetime than some have in seven years of warfare.

My friends who died after living only a few years out of high school. They are my heroes.

As I’ve said before in the postscript of Bug’s Prayer and Core Values these are the types of people I want my boys to hear about when they ask what a hero is.

Rick Tafoya, I would have loved to learn snowboarding later that year. I had plenty of time before I transferred into my fleet squadron.

Joseph John Pycior, died at the Pentagon in room 1D457 on the morning of 9/11. Boats was less than four months from retirement.

I briefly met “Boats” at the ASWOC in San Diego between flights during a brief. I remember him because one of the other guys was teasing him about being a Boatswains Mate prior to becoming an AW, the score requirements for both jobs being diametrically opposed on the ASVAB test.

Brian Cerino, died in 1991 in the worst Naval air disaster. Cerino was the roommate of one of my closest friends, Duncan.

Berto “Pablo” Escobar and Billy Quinn, both in a helo accident just before I got out. I remember these guys, particularly Billy Quinn from my first cruise before they went to Japan with HS-14.

Robert “The General” Lee, whose death trapped underwater in a helo accident completely changed the design of emergency air bottles for the entire Navy and Marine Corps. Lee was in VS-41 with me as a student, but went back to the helo side of the base as an instructor.

All were brothers. I lost a sister as well.

Wendy Potter, a California girl who I knew only briefly. Wendy was the first all-AW pipeline West Coast student to become a Viking SENSO. Her S-3B Viking jet went down with all hands lost.

May they all rest in peace. We miss you. I will never forget you.

A great discussion has started over on MonkeyPi about the Sun Tech Writer who is suing regarding unfair work exemptions. I replied there but this is a far lengthier topic than the comments deserve.

Exempt Tech Writing: How To Not Get Sued

Personally, I tend to view this as a problem that needs a solution. Were I negotiating this matter I would bring up two specific issues which could have prevented this from occurring, or which could lessen the expectations of management.

First, one thing that Adobe does do right is that they allow telecommuting. This allows a 60 hour work week to be reasonably managed along with a busy life schedule because employees can manage their lives around the time they put in on their home systems.

Second, by having a workflow that allows input remotely without endless face to face meetings (the absolute largest waste of time I observed while working as a tech writer for a nameless military contractor) and proper collaboration, a lot of this time saved reflects working smarter, not harder.

Getting Granular about Exempt Status

I found the following definition of exempt status online:

EXEMPT means the job is NOT subject to payment for overtime hours worked. Employer policy may elect to compensate incumbents in these jobs for their overtime, but there are no restrictions on rates used or quantity of hours paid to incumbents in exempt jobs.

Overtime requirements apply to the JOB not the EMPLOYEE. It is the responsibility content of the job that determines if incumbent employees must be paid for the overtime they work.

There is a Highly Compensated Job exempt status but it only applies to Public-Sector Employees.

Legally, exempt employees are due overtime in California law if it can be proven that they regularly cannot complete their normal assigned tasks without working overtime. Two years ago a roommate of mine ended up winning a similar judgement simply by making a phone call to an attorney and having them contact the HR department where he was working.

What it takes to document your situation is at the very least, logging your hours worked along with the tasks you are assigned. Regardless of exempt/non-exempt status, in California the Overtime law states that you cannot be expected to be working for free, which is what regular overtime without pay is.

Summing up, legally Sun is responsible, at least to one employee. The judge’s court order has the attorneys searching for a second employee, a reasonable request given the frequency with which John Edwards-like trial lawyers tend to overuse the class action.

The lawyers will win one person’s case, that’s a given. A landmark ‘blow for Sun techcomms’ it may not be unless they find another employee to sign on the line.

Yet, as this attorney states on his blog in reference to the IT lawsuits:

In this situation, is it any wonder that, increasingly, some California companies are moving jobs across the border to work in other states where employees don’t have to be paid special overtime rates?

Just like the ridiculously high workers’ compensation rates hurt job creation in California several years ago, the overtime pay requirements are doing the same thing in the IT industry.

Below the fold are the boring legalese text from the California Labor site… You’ve been warned!

The California exemption that Sun can attempt to use is:

professional exemption 

A person employed in a professional capacity means any employee who meets all of the following requirements:

Who is licensed or certified by the State of California and is primarily engaged in the practice of one of the following recognized professions: law, medicine, dentistry, optometry, architecture, engineering, teaching, or accounting, or

Who is primarily engaged in an occupation commonly recognized as a learned or artistic profession. “Learned or artistic profession” means an employee who is primarily engaged in the performance of:

Work requiring knowledge of an advance type in a field or science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and study, as distinguished from a general academic education and from an apprenticeship, and from training in the performance of routine mental, manual, or physical processes, or work that is an essential part of or necessarily incident to any of the above work; or

Work that is original and creative in character in a recognized field of artistic endeavor (as opposed to work which can be produced by a person endowed with general manual or intellectual ability and training), and the result of which depends primarily on the invention, imagination, or talent of the employee or work that is an essential part of or necessarily incident to any of the above work; and

Whose work is predominantly intellectual and varied in character (as opposed to routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical work) and is of such character that the output produced or the result accomplished cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time.

Who customarily and regularly exercised discretion an independent judgment in the performance of duties set forth above.

Who earns a monthly salary equivalent to no less than two times the state minimum wage for full-time employment. Full-time employment means 40 hours per week as defined in Labor Code Section 515(c).

or this one (exempt only from IWC order 14)

Any employee who is engaged in work that is primarily intellectual, managerial, or creative, and which requires exercise of discretion and independent judgment, and for which the remuneration is not less than two times the monthly State minimum wage for full time employment

Regarding the requirement for the exemption to apply that the employee “customarily and regularly exercises discretion and independent judgment,” this phrase means the comparison and evaluation of possible courses of conduct and acting or making a decision after the various possibilities have been considered. The employee must have the authority or power to make an independent choice, free from immediate direction or supervision and with respect to matters of significance.

For the learned professions, an advanced academic degree (above the bachelor level) is a standard prerequisite.

For the artistic professions, work in a “recognized field of artistic endeavor” includes such fields as music, writing, the theater, and the plastic and graphic arts.

Questions may arise why the law which covers employees in the computer software field doesn’t allow for exemption. The exemptions don’t apply to technical writers. Even if you only write labels for the CDs.

Simply put:

employee in the computer software field

Except as provided below in paragraph 5, an employee in the computer software field who is paid on an hourly basis shall be exempt under the professional exemption, if all of the following apply:

1. The employee is primarily engaged in work that is intellectual or creative and requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment.
2. The employee is primarily engaged in duties that consist of one or more of the following:
   • The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications.
   • The design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing, or modification of computer systems or programs, including prototypes, based on and related to, user or system design specifications.
   • The documentation, testing, creation, or modification of computer programs related to the design of software or hardware for computer operating systems.
3. The employee is highly skilled and is proficient in the theoretical and practical application of highly specialized information to computer systems analysis, programming, and software engineering. A job title shall not be determinative of the applicability of the exemption.
4. The employee’s hourly rate of pay is not less than $41.00 [the rate in effect on September 19, 2000]. The Division of Labor Statistics and Research shall adjust this pay rate on October 1 of each year to be effective on January 1 of the following year by an amount equal to the percentage increase in the California Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. Click here for adjusted rate information (pdf) (doc).
5. The exemption described above does not apply to an employee if any of the following apply:
   1. The employee is a trainee or employee in an entry-level position who is learning to become proficient in the theoretical and practical application of highly specialized information to computer systems analysis, programming, and software engineering.
   2. The employee is in a computer-related occupation but has not attained the level of skill and expertise necessary to work independently and without close supervision.
   3. The employee is engaged in the operation of computers or in the manufacture, repair, or maintenance of computer hardware and related equipment.
   4. The employee is an engineer, drafter, machinist, or other professional whose work is highly dependent upon or facilitated by the use of computers and computer software programs and who is skilled in computer-aided design software, including CAD/CAM, but who is not in a computer systems analysis or programming occupation.
   5. The employee is a writer engaged in writing material, including box labels, product descriptions, documentation, promotional material, setup and installation instructions, and other similar written information, either for print or for onscreen media or who writes or provides content material intended to be read by customers, subscribers, or visitors to computer-related media such as the World Wide Web or CD-ROMS.
   6. The employee is engaged in any of the activities set forth in nos. 1 through 4 above for the purpose of creating imagery for effect used in the motion picture, television, or theatrical industry.

Is it safe to go back into the water? Another San Diego surfer is suspected to have been eaten… We’ll find out more from the autopsy, but this occurred up near Ventura. 

Dead surfer found off Santa Cruz Island identified

The Associated Press | Article Launched: 05/04/2008 11:07:16 AM PDT

SAN DIEGO—Authorities have found the body of a 43-year-old San Diego man who disappeared while surfing with friends off Santa Cruz Island.

John M. Wagner was found dead in the water about 20 miles south of Ventura Harbor on Friday, the Ventura County coroner’s office said.

While surfing a break on the island with friends, Wagner went underwater for unknown reasons about 5 p.m., according to a Coast Guard official. The island is part of the Channel Islands National Park, and it was park rangers who found his body.

The autopsy will be conducted in Santa Barbara County where the death occurred.

Wagner’s death comes six days after a shark killed triathelete David Martin off Solana Beach.

Monday’s Update: According to the LA Times today, more details show this is not a shark… however there was another shark attack down in Mexico this weekend.

Wagner’s death comes just four days after a shark killed a 24-year-old San Francisco surfer in Mexico and a week after a triathlete was killed by a shark in San Diego County. Adrian Ruiz bled to death after being bitten on the thigh April 28 while surfing off Troncones beach west of Alcapulco.

It’s not clear what species was involved in the attack but Mexico’s Navy and maritime authorities had spotted two great white sharks nearby during helicopter overflights.

Beachgoers were being warned about the sharks’ presence near the largely undeveloped oceanfront.

And then there’s this account regarding the Ruiz attack…

Shark kills American: A shark killed San Francisco surfer Adrian Ruiz, 24, at Troncones beach north of Ixtapa on Monday. Mexicans then began slaughtering sharks.

“It is outrageous that the Mexican government is hunting sharks to protect tourists, when the biggest threat to tourists in Mexico is the crime wave that has engulfed the country,” said Serge Dedina of Wildcoast/ Costasalvaje, based in Imperial Beach and Tijuana.

As I mentioned in a previous post, while I was at eHelp my offsite time was focused on researching Energy, Internet Communication Technology (ICT), and beginning in 2004, Agriculture as emerging sectors.

After working intensely with supporting the then-new RoboDemo community, I decided that eLearning and Blended Learning were killer apps which couldn’t be ignored.

So my grand NorCal plan evolved. Take active duty, soon to retire military vets and train them in a California industry – vineyard management. Vets2Vines was born. And now Ag is the new hot trend. Like I could have planned it any better.

Here I am, positioned with both Renewable Energy and 40 acres of prime, irrigation subsidized Northern California property. The agriculture boom is still on – MarketWatch

As oil flirts with $120 a barrel and corn shoots up over $6 a bushel, it’s clear that demand is real for both commodities, and yet there’s also a bit of froth in those prices as well. How much of it is speculation?

…I have been hearing for three years that corn price couldn’t possibly go any higher. I heard that argument at $2.50, $3, $4.50 and $5. Now here at $6.20, the same bearish absolutes are being spouted from all over the place and my indicators tell me that it’s simply not true.

How much is that in real dollars?

The average bushel to acre breakdown is 183:1. Math says this year will be $7.50 per bushel. That’s a little under $50k for the property. Only half to a quarter what winegrapes would bring.

Then again I don’t have to string all those wires and posts for the vines. And wait 4 years with stranded costs while the vines grow. And do forward contracting to lock in the client. Lowers risk if you make money year 1 instead of year 4. 

Ethanol is what’s got farmers all excited. And the market’s guaranteed.

It doesn’t have to come from corn, either.

Sugar is the New Oil

Sugar beets were Solano County’s prime source of cash crops twenty years ago. According to a recent National Geographic I read, Brazil’s ethanol comes primarily from sugar cane. Sugar beets, sugar cane… Jimmy Smits says it best: Sugar is the New Oil.

From the USDA:

The estimated ethanol production costs using sugarcane, sugar beets, raw sugar, and refined sugar as a feedstocks are more than twice the production cost of converting corn into ethanol.

While it is more profitable to produce ethanol from corn in the United States, the price of ethanol is determined by the price of gasoline and other factors, rather than the cost of producing ethanol from corn.

With recent spot market prices for ethanol near $4 per gallon, it is profitable to produce ethanol from sugarcane and sugar beets, raw sugar, and refined sugar.

Umm. So According to this article, with gas now at $4 a gallon we’re now able to produce ethanol at just about the same cost.

Well, technically the really really cost efficient way would be producing ethanol from molasses produced as a byproduct of the processing of the sugar beets, with HFCS being the other product.

If you build it… they will come…

I’ve already got people stopping by my place to ask me when they can build one just like it. Super simple, not a lot of framing, and near-zero energy footprint.

Funny how a little thing like renewable energy can get people jazzed up now that fuel is through the roof. 51% of our energy still comes from coal, but you know… California’s transmission grid is SuX0r.

I just realized, that as I was penning my Worst Day Ever post about how tough it is to be an entrepreneur (I hate that word)…

…That this little project of mine which has appreciating decently 5% year after year BEFORE the price of corn went through the roof.

Residential units are depreciated 20% in Solano County and here I sit, on a gold mine.

I just realized that all the pain and toil I’ve put into the past year is really really going to pay off. All I have to do is enjoy the view after I finish the next project.

Oh, and the cost of energy?

I’m pretty relaxed about that as well. The six windmills and interconnect I’m going to put in as a micro-wind farm has me kicking back on that matter as well.

Not to mention that my SIP constructed home is 60% more efficient than the best standard stick construction home.

Ask me about Hubbert’s Peak, and I’ll show you my (proven) concepts for hydrogen electrolysis from water. Oh yeah, electrolysis for free since the wind power is up.

“The fundamental question from today’s perspective is how to produce hydrogen,” said Andreas Schafer, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development.

Umm. Well, according to our calcs that great resource called WIND. D’oooh!

Hydrogen used how?

To run your turbocharged vehicle. Just like a NOX canister you can force H2 into your engine’s combustion cycle.

It gets you about 25% more fuel, according to several sources. More on that later. That’s what my brother’s working on. We’ll be selling them after we find a good manufacturer.

It’s nice to have options.

Props to Agent K

I just dropped Karsten Gerhardt off for his connecting rail to LAX. Karsten, one of the principals for 3si2 Corporation, is heading out on a client business tour of Europe. Back in the day, I called him K even before that Tommy Lee Jones character from Men In Black. K laughs a lot more than Jones’ character so it’s not exactly a fair comparison.

K reminded me that he’s never looked back at the salaried employee world or drawn a W2 since our launch back in 2001.

Memories of Startups

Karsten, Jim Nesbitt, and I started 3nW Corporation after NVTL’s dotbomb layoff cycle back seven years ago. The corporation’s founding date is April 20, a homage for Jim’s great Ultimate Frisbee counterculture sense of humor. You’d never think he used to work at the Pentagon for the Chief of Naval Operations.

K was the NVTL eCommerce guy, Jim was killer in NVTL’s Tech Support and pretty handy with HTML, and I came out of the NVTL Applications Engineering department. Also, I brought a deal with me and stepped up with the first potential field engineering contract. That didn’t take so we fell back to the wireless data consulting and positioned to market scientists and engineering skills to the open market. That was for CTIA 2001.

After our launch of 3nW Corporation as a wireless data consulting firm cratered because of very bad luck on 9/11, we were soon relying on individual fallback plans.

Exiled…

A few months later I went back to the trade of being a data plumber, as I called Technical Support, starting with eHelp in January 2002. No more globetrotting and stand-up training, no more great Vancouver BC seafood dinners with clients, nope, it was back to the trenches. 

Back in 2002 and 2003 while I worked at eHelp Corporation by day, and by night I was identifying the next Disruptive Technologies to work into our comeback strategy.

One we looked at was search engine technology. That one was Karsten’s contribution.

Search. I said it first…

Right before Google came up with their desktop search, we pitched it to them. Or at least, our sleazy sales guy pitched it to their lower tier less-than visionary acquisitions team. This was when their Google search appliance in a box style servers were selling for $25k a pop and flying out the doors.

While the desktop search was designed as a small demo, we also had a killer search server tool that did cartwheels with multiple byte character sets for languages.

Nobody understood the value proposition.

Karsten and Don Addiss, our former Vice President at Novatel Wireless, spun off into 3si2 and became a leading design firm with super tight coding while I kept on track with my other research.

They still offer the search engine.

Along with a lot of other very cool services to clients like the LA Clippers and Boeing.

Back to the drawing board | Research

I know people say that Flare has a steep learning curve but those first ninety days using RoboHelp I needed something to make my passion.

I was focused on Energy, Internet Communication Technology (ICT), and beginning in 2004, Agriculture as emerging sectors. Hey, those sites are still up there on 3nW – not updated for years. Go check them out, use the Wayback Machine.

I prettied up a lot of different content I was researching from the NREL and the United Nations and got used to RoboHelp’s myriad uses so I could support them.

My time at eHelp opened my eyes to a lot of Market Disruption in how corporations could do on-demand training and save thousands. ICT was and still is hot. eLearning is the best thing that could have come out of the ICT focus, and distributing education (for free) across the planet – well, while being a bit anti-capitalist, it’s one of the greatest achievements I’ve ever heard of.

What’s in store? To be continued…

Thursday was A Very Bad Day. This week has been tough as well. Unfortunately I’m having to become an expert in virtually every single thing I’m doing because the ‘experts’ who I hire are completely incompetent in business. Welcome to construction / construction financing / engineering in California. Flakes run the show.

In fact, I’m catching up on my blogging is because since this April Fools Day I’ve been on hiatus while ‘other people’ decide to pull the trigger on my next round of financing.

Whatever.

April Fools Day. What a day to get the final sign-off from the county office for the project.

All of my issues seemed to gain perspective when I watched this guy’s story and listened to the Rich Dad – Poor Dad series creator talk about the resilience it takes in order to make it when, first you’ve made colossal mistakes and second, when everyone around you is criticizing you.

So at least I’m better off than this guy. In a lot of ways, but mainly because I didn’t make the colossal mistakes.

If all I have to do is weather this current storm of boredom and the potential of financial death by attrition, that’s doable. Bring it on…

Saving us from ourselves…

And then there’s this… Bailout backlash – Apr. 23, 2008

“There’s a huge segment of the country saying, ‘We don’t want our money used for a bailout,’” said Brandon.

“A third of the American public rents,” Brandon pointed out. “They’re saying ‘I’ve been saving for a mortgage for years. I could have jumped in on a subprime loan too. Now I’m going to have to pay for a government bailout.”

I happen to be one of those renters who saw this market correction coming, and I’ve been trying to position myself properly for the opportunity.

No, I didn’t go into flipping homes. Although one of my contractor advisors is a guy who did have three or four homes he was in the middle of flipping when the music stopped and everybody grabbed a chair in the California housing bomb.

I wanted to keep on renting when everyone else was buying homes higher and higher. As Kiyosaki said in the clip, the concept of buying in a high market is looking to make money on the ‘bigger fool’. After all, if all your friends are talking about it at the cocktail parties, you’ve just gotta get into it, right?!? Meh.

Thinking of it as a sabbatical from my software, training, and wireless background I decided to work on my strategic side of business in early 2005.

It started with a family project.

Back in 2004 when gas was $2 a gallon, I was researching the soon to be sudden Hubbert’s Peak which we now seem to have slam-danced into. The best part of this construction was that it would be energy efficient, and be an example of a rural wind farm done under $10k.

Below the fold I’ve just got more to say, so don’t go there unless you just have to have the real scoop on how tough the past 18 months have been.

This past year I’ve had the opportunity to live out tough out a project which was entirely outside my field of expertise: building a home. Not only building a home, but building it 500 miles away from my base of operations in San Diego.

Our project in a nutshell – Blended Learning type training in vineyard management combined with a residency program which takes advantage of zero footprint energy efficiency designed into the buildings and wind energy in a zone 4 area. Did I mention the military base just five miles down the road?

For lack of explaining an 80 page business plan, I just call our use ‘rental’ which makes the appraisers and other money guys nod appreciatively.

This was a creative option for improving a 40 acre property gifted to my brother and I by our aunt. The gift had a stipulation: build a house for our father who, at the time was in his late 80s and still very much the Berkeley activist.

Anyone who’s read my About page knows that I had my time of it back in 2001. Getting laid off following an IPO that underdelivered, then having everything go south in the initial wireless data consulting concept when our launch was set for Sept. 11, 2001. Well, we all know what happened on that day in history. Too bad it was also the day CTIA was supposed to launch.

Resiliency. That’s my core value

For the past year I’ve had to deal with people overpromising, and under-delivering, if they deliver at all. In fact, construction is so full of flakes it’s amazing anything ever gets built.

Things started out tough and just got tougher. Property that didn’t just come to us gift-wrapped, we’ve had to do so many improvements for compliance that it just boggles the mind. I still have pictures of what it used to look like prior to 2005. 

Not to mention my dad passing away a year ago after a brutal time of it in the hospitals. Ever since then I can just eyeball any passing nurse and tell you whether they’ll be good at their jobs or not.

Three months before that both my mom’s parents passed away within six months of each other.

Three in one year. Three in nine months, actually.

Meanwhile… back at the ranch…

Property that somehow attracted the strangest and most unhinged Berkeley crowd who felt that somehow they owned it, and attempted not once but twice to put felony ex-cons as squatters onto it.

Confrontations with squatters in the dead of night, pouring rain in January, one with an ex-con with two pit bulls. My private investigation background came in handy. So did the Mossberg 590 I had thought to bring that dark and rainy night, not to mention 911 on speed dial. Nobody got hurt. That’s a win in my book. Well, that and nobody every came back out to squat on the land again. Trouble rides a fast horse.

Like having our subcontracted engineer pull the pin on his boss and catch us and ten other poor homeowners in the frag pattern of his ambitions. He’s on my list of evil people who need to get sued and have their licenses pulled. My complaint’s been filed already.

The rest of the stories. Even worse. They would chill the blood of anyone remotely interested in getting a construction loan. I’ll leave those for telling on long dark winter evenings over beer and wings.

After all of that, having the county approval process turn out to be the easiest part of the situation has been a pleasant surprise. That was no picnic either. Just everything else in comparison was a lot harder.

Lessons Learned

You will hate your contractor. This is something that every single source of information I could grasp about construction gave to me.

So I got creative. I didn’t hire one.

At least not full time. And you know what? Most of my problems and dilemmas wouldn’t have been helped one single bit by having that extra $50k spent on the profit of a contractor.

I’m not saying that I didn’t need advice, but hiring a contractor as an advisor is a lot cheaper.

And I don’t hate him. He’s actually a really great guy.

One last thing. The same basic tenet I try to pass on to my children is that mistakes are okay and even necessary, but not being honest about your mistakes is a sin. Mistakes – I’ve made a few. But the hardest mistakes I’ve had to deal with are the ones that were made by other people which I have had to clean up.

Wait, shhhhhh….

Don’t tell anyone about this report until I get a chance to build my duplex in NorCal and then buy another duplex here in San Diego!

So, instead of citing 17-year lows, the better statistic for the press to report would have been the 11.0 month supply of new homes on the market.  Because it’s up from 9.8 in February, buyers may now have additional negotiating leverage with developers that want (or need) to get their unsold, newly-built homes off the books pronto.

Just because the headlines read like bad news doesn’t mean that the story is bad news, too.  Dig a little deeper for the real story,

I’ve been waiting for five years for the market to correct like this so I could make a common sense investment, and now that it does, everyone wants to say we’re doing fine.

So I have to say – just listen to your televisions, pay no attention to this chart…